Who Do You Think She Is?

^{Remembering Mary Gordon}

One of the pleasures of watching Hollywood films from the 1930s and 1940s is the chance to see the work of some of the wonderful character actors who were the backbone of the industry. Weasly little Elisha Cook Jnr seemed born to play the fall guy. Edward Everett Horton could delight with his dithering and Eve Arden could serve up a wisecrack more lethal than any vodka martini.

Glasgow-born Mary Gordon was one of that tireless team of supporting players who lit up Hollywood's Golden Age. She is best remembered now for playing the housekeeper Mrs Hudson in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies but those films represent just a fraction of a very prolific career. If Hollywood needed a Scottish washerwoman, devoted Irish mother or loyal Welsh servant then they came to Mary Gordon. She appeared alongside Cary Grant and James Cagney, Katharine Hepburn and Mae West, James Stewart and Joan Crawford. She appeared more than once alongside Laurel And Hardy, notably in Bonnie Scotland (1935), and was a firm favourite of director John Ford who employed her in a string of films from Mary Of Scotland (1936) to Fort Apache (1948).

There are plenty of reasons to remember Mary Gordon and this year's Glasgow Film Festival has just the person to tell her story. Journalist Alison Kerr, a regular contributor to The Herald, is Mary's relative and has many insider tales to tell of Mary's journey from Glasgow to Hollywood and back. When Mary returned to Glasgow in 1946 for a visit she was accompanied by one of her many showbusiness pals, a talented musical fellow that you might have heard of called Irving Berlin.

Remembering Mary Gordon (click title for tickets) takes place on Sunday February 15th at 1.15pm at the Glasgow Film Theatre and will include clips from some of Mary's many films including Bonnie Scotland and the Sherlock Holmes series.

Blogger: GFF co-director Allan Hunter